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Urban Forager | Shrubbery You Can Drink

Photographs by Ava Chin for The New York TimesSmooth sumac spreads its feathery wings on Staten Island — and just about everywhere else in the city.

Back in July, on a meditation weekend at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, N.Y., I spied flaming-red bunches of sumac fruit standing out from the branches of a tree like tiki torches.

They were so dramatic I was surprised I hadn’t noticed them earlier. I spent the rest of the morning, when I was supposed to be meditating, gazing out the window at the fruit and ruminating over the great lemonade-like beverage it would make.

The tree I saw in Rhinebeck was probably staghorn sumac — I wasn’t close enough to know for sure — but lately I’ve been seeing its slightly more common cousin, smooth sumac (Rhus glabra), in fruit across the city, and even along the Interstate highways heading north. When I discovered a short plant growing bushlike along the fringes of the College of Staten Island campus recently, I snagged some.

Ruby red and tangy, too.

I often associate sumac with harvest time — last year I presented some clusters of fruit to the hostess of a Sukkot party — but it also makes a wonderful drink when the weather is hot.

Smooth sumac, sometimes called scarlet sumac, grows across the country, and is native to most states, southern Canada and northern Mexico. It is similar in looks to the staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina), which can grow to be a larger tree with hairy stems.

Both types of sumac have the kind of large leaves, with many serrated leaflets, that turn brilliant orange to scarlet in autumn. They also have velvety fruit clusters that, when ripe, range from the color of cranberries to the color of Chanel Red lipstick. The fruit smells sweetly reminiscent of those candy buttons my childhood friends and I used to tear off the paper with our teeth. Many folks have heard of poison sumac (Toxicodendron vernix or Rhus vernix), which, as the name suggests, is to be avoided. Like its cousins, poison ivy and poison oak, it contains urushiol, a resin that causes contact dermatitis and mucous membrane irritation.

Poison sumac has white fruit that hangs like grapes, and smooth, fatter leaves. The landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted had early brushes with the plant, which hurt his eyesight while he was a teenager; he recovered and went on to design Central and Prospect Parks with his partner Calvert Vaux.

Native Americans used all parts of smooth sumac for medicinal purposes (from a sore-throat gargle to a wash for sexually transmitted disease), but as the foraging guru Euell Gibbons discovered, they also enjoyed it as an excellent late-summer drink; you can use staghorn sumac for the drink as well. Immerse six to eight fruit clusters in a pitcher of cool water, mash it with a wooden pestle or a potato masher, let the liquid stand for at least four hours, and strain.

Some folks add sugar to taste, but I prefer mine unadulterated.

Last year, I made my first batch from a bunch of staghorn sumac that a friend had gathered on the south shore of Staten Island, but I must admit, drinking a cooling, citrusy beverage from plants you’ve collected yourself just tastes better.

Just add water.

Wild Smooth Sumac-ade

1. Immerse at least six-eight ripe smooth or staghorn sumac berry clusters in a pitcher-full of cool water. (Do not short-cut with hot water, as it makes the drink bitter).

I remember drinking sumac-ade at summer camp several decades ago. It is refreshing and especially enjoyable if, like me, your preferences run toward tart rather than the disgustingly sweet “bug juice” we were served at other times.

A word of caution to sumac harvesters: it often grows at the edge of fields and waste lands, which are also prime real estate for poison ivy and ticks. Make sure to watch out for the former and take precautions against the latter!

Everywhere I look, delicious, ripe crabapples are just going to waste, which breaks my heart. This recipe has 3x the vitamin C of regular apple juice: Soak a large bucket of fresh/foraged crabapples in boiling water, barely covered, overnight, simmer on low heat until fruit is tender, strain, allow juice to cool, store in fridge. Use juice as you would lemonade or to give sweeter fruit juices a refreshing edge.
The leftover crabapple pulp can be added to pancake batter, pies, cookies, ect.

The Sumac trees haven’t started to turn scarlett in the park yet but, like the picture here, the berries are red and I assume ripe
I’m sure I’ll get arrested if I pick them.
On the other hand, the Oak Trees are dropping their capped acorns all over the place.
I’ve tasted an acorn and they are dry, tough and have a taste that I didn’t relish.
I’ve read that the Chinese grind acorns into flour, but do you have any other use for them.?
No, don’t tell me to hollow them out, put a wooden match stick in the side and pretend you have a smoking pipe.
I was a kid once, so I already know that one!

You know, I looked cooking with acorns up on the internet, and I was surprised that it can be done.
There were a few Native American recipes using acorn flour, but it said the nuts boiled in water to leach the bitterness out can be used to replace most other nuts in recipes, too!
As soon as I have a little more time from my current writings I’m going to look Asian recipes using acorns up, too.
A day gone by without learning something new is a day completely wasted!

For Marcia, 1st commenter above – yes, that’s exactly what I am doing with local sumac. The tart flavour is excellent. You do have to rub the dusty covering off each seed, and then dry them in very, very low oven. After that they can be ground in an ordinary pepper mill.

A recipe – although this one is not Middle Eastern at all. More East Coast :-):

I have been violently pushed to the side by Korean grandmothers in search of acorns in the park. A few long wars will teach grandmother many lessons in survival. As they drive away in their daughter’s Mercedes…

#12
I still cook salt codfish with hard boiled egg white sauce, fried out salt pork strips, mashed potatoes and peas, and I haven’t lived in the state of Maine now for twenty five years.
Oh, and I don’t drive.
The New York City Bus, and the Subway System gets me to any place that I want to go.

#12 I hear you. Public transportation can be so great….more folks should try it (and I don’t mean just in NYC!)
Need to get more salmon this wkend. Have been enjoying delicious mussels!! And with fresh tomatoes from a garden on Adams Street……excellent!!

A garden on Adams Street.
That runs from York up to State Street.
I came from the neighborhood south of State Street that ran from Oak to Spruce Street, as you already know.
As tightly packed as the houses were on those streets that slopped down to Hancock Street to the river, there was always a front flower garden, at least an alley way between, and a small vergetable garden in the backyard.
The “old folk” were very self reliant!

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